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Jun. 29th, 2004 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onefixedstarWhile walking back from my tutorial last night, I was stopped by a man who asked if I was a native English speaker. When I said that I was, he asked if I'd be willing to edit a paper for compensation. He told me that he was a visiting linguistics professor from Iran. The paper wasn't his--it was written by a friend of his, also a non-native speaker of English, who pressured him to edit it for her. So I edited it and learned a bit about Dali's Persistence of Memory. Only a bit, though, because the paper was very reptitive and didn't provide a lot of nuance. The professor was very interested in seeing how I edited it, and asked lots of questions. It was an odd experience.
I'm currently working on a committee engaged in investigating ways of increasing voter turnout at the next graduate student election. As part of that, I've been requesting information from various companies about the web-based voting services the provide. So far every company has addressed me by first name, and one company shortened my name to a variant that I don't use. I've decided that I was being overly harsh with my students when I complained about their misuse of my name; if companies now freely use nicknames with potential clients, there clearly aren't any rules.
I'm currently working on a committee engaged in investigating ways of increasing voter turnout at the next graduate student election. As part of that, I've been requesting information from various companies about the web-based voting services the provide. So far every company has addressed me by first name, and one company shortened my name to a variant that I don't use. I've decided that I was being overly harsh with my students when I complained about their misuse of my name; if companies now freely use nicknames with potential clients, there clearly aren't any rules.
